Unique crushed star apple product achieves 3 OCOP stars

To see this unique product, we went to the Canarium production workshop of Thien Loc Food Production and Trading Company Limited, and were taken by Mr. Ngo Tuan Thanh to visit his Canarium garden. The garden has an area of ​​over 7,000m2 ^and is intercropped with a number of other crops, but the Canarium tree stands out because it is tall and is in the stage of white flowers. Mr. Tuan Thanh shared: "Canarium fruit is harvested all year round and only stops bearing fruit in May for the tree to flower and bear fruit. Canarium fruit is in full bloom in July, August, and September and will maintain a continuous amount of fruit on the tree, thanks to which the source of raw materials is continuously available to produce crushed Canarium fruit products for the market."

Mr. Ngo Tuan Thanh - Director of Thien Loc Food Production and Trading Company Limited, Ward 7, Soc Trang City (Soc Trang) introduces the crushed canarium fruit product achieving 3 OCOP stars in 2022. Photo: THUY LIEU

Talking about the crushed carambola dish, Mr. Tuan Thanh continued: " My family's carambola garden was mainly grown for eating and selling in small quantities, with insignificant income. Although I saw the fruits falling all over the ground, I was busy with many things and did not pay attention to them. However, when the epidemic broke out in 2021, all my work was temporarily suspended. Seeing that although the carambola was not taken care of much, the fruits were still full on the branches, I suddenly had the idea of ​​trying to make a crushed carambola dish to sell to the market. Thinking is doing, I immediately started researching and processing the carambola fruit to keep it fresh, especially without using any preservatives. To make the crushed carambola product, I bought many types of machinery and equipment and spent more than a month researching, then processed the finished product of crushed carambola fruit. Initially, the crushed carambola fruit still had the seeds intact, but when it was brought to the market, consumers still liked it very much, I thought this carambola dish was successful. But one The next time I went to the supermarket, I saw the apricots soaked in glue and had the seeds removed. From there, I spent more than 400 million VND to invest in the necessary machinery, using crushed star fruit to remove the seeds inside. After nearly half a year of research and many failures, the seedless crushed star fruit product was successfully brought to the market. Customers liked it more and the sales volume was much better than before."

After packaging the product, he did not pay much attention to the outer packaging, the main thing was the quality inside. Luckily for him, when he learned about the unique and novel features of the crushed canarium fruit product, the specialized industry of Soc Trang city supported the product packaging, and the new packaging contributed to increasing the value of the product. Therefore, based on that support, he continued to improve the product packaging to be more complete and registered to participate in the OCOP star rating assessment for the crushed canarium fruit product and the product was ranked 3 OCOP stars in 2022.

According to Mr. Tuan Thanh, his company still maintains the production pace of crushed star fruit, with the amount of fresh fruit from 100 - 150kg/day, the number of workers participating in production is 10 people. To make the product reach consumers conveniently, crushed star fruit is packed in boxes weighing 500g/box, selling price 85,000 - 95,000 VND/box depending on the distance. In addition to selling directly, he also sells on TikTok, Facebook, Zalo and 2 stores in Can Tho City and Soc Trang City. In addition to star fruit, Mr. Tuan Thanh also produces canned seedless star fruit products, which are also popular with consumers and with this product, he will soon also participate in the evaluation and OCOP star rating.

Mr. Tran Hoang Dung - Head of the Department of Agricultural Product Quality Management and Rural Development of Soc Trang province said that up to now, Soc Trang province has 263 products achieving OCOP stars, including 1 potential 5-star OCOP product, 26 4-star OCOP products and 236 3-star OCOP products of 150 entities. Accordingly, most of the OCOP star products are processed from local agricultural products and fruits. Particularly, the product of Ca Na fruit is a popular fruit, but the product owner has used this fruit to process into value-added products, contributing to creating good output for the product, creating more jobs for workers.

THUY LIEU

Source: https://baosoctrang.org.vn/thuong-mai-dich-vu/202505/doc-dao-san-pham-ca-na-dap-dap-dat-3-sao-ocop-cba4902/